Schools
Middle School Choruses Beat the Heat and Sing
On a sweltering hot evening in the MMS auditorium, seven choruses sang 24 songs.
The Millburn Middle School choruses, consisting of seven vocal ensembles spanning three grades, presented their Spring Concert on Wednesday night.
Students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade choruses, all under the direction of David Huneryager, sacrifice half of their daily study hall periods to rehearse. The select chorus, an audition-only ensemble of seventh and eighth graders, rehearses after school with Huneryager for an hour every Tuesday.
The sixth grade chorus opened the concert with The Star-Spangled Banner. They proceeded to sing "Misty Morning" and "Three Czech Folk Songs." The Czech songs featured soloists Julia Damasek, Max Eagle, Sofia Fernandez, Laina Haymes, Amanda Howe, Sarah Jordan, Carly Mazer and Samantha Plummer. The sixth graders continued with the traditional American folk song "Old Dan Tucker." The boys of the sixth grade chorus then sang "Consider Yourself" from the musical "Oliver!" featuring soloists Jake Gluckman and Sam Dantowitz. The sixth-grade girls, featuring soloist Elizabeth Gray, sang the Korean folk song "Ahrirang" to close their set of songs.
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The seventh grade chorus followed. They sang the traditional spiritual "Ride the Chariot" featuring soloists Brittany Stern and Mary Hetherington. Helene Bosman, Ruth Engel, Miranda Kasher, Alexandra Kirschenbaum, Francisco Morales, Leonard Santos, Chelsea Schwartz, Parnika Sharma and Jordan Young also were featured. They then sang the Spanish pop song "Oye la Música." Featuring Carly Maitlin, the seventh grade chorus closed with Stephen Schwartz's "God Help the Outcasts" from the "Hunchback of Notre Dame."
The eighth grade chorus were next to sing. They opened with Joplin's "We're Goin' Around" from the opera "Treemonisha" featuring Charlie Ehrenfried and Andrew Singer. Joseph Schwartz was featured in the eighth grade chorus' next song, a Sephardic folk song entitled "Durme, Durme." Finally, the eighth graders sang the theme from the Sondheim musical "Sweeney Todd" called "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd."
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After the eighth grade chorus stepped down, the select chorus took their positions on the risers to present a series of Indian melodies "Dravidian Dithyramb" and then a medley of songs from the Broadway musical "Hairspray," including "Welcome to the 60's," "Good Morning Baltimore" and "You Can't Stop the Beat."
The seventh and eighth grade girls then sang "A New Day" and "The Rose." "The Rose," a Bette Midler standard, featured eighth-grade soloists Caroline Casey, Anya Parker-Lentz, Gauri Chopra and Cynthia Mustafa.
The seventh and eighth grade boys then came to the stage, singing two more selections. The first song, Gilbert & Sullivan's "When I Was a Lad" from "HMS Pinafore," featured Matthew Jentis, Jack Lindberg, Josh Hochman, Ian Jaffe and Christopher Shan. They then sang Manfred Mann's hit 1964 song "Do Wah Diddy" featuring soloists Chase Harrison and Matthew Garawitz.
All of the singers from the sixth, seventh and eighth grades came back to the stage to close out the concert with two more selections. This was the first time that the sixth, seventh and eighth grades came together at a Millburn Middle School choral concert to sing. The singers, who must have numbered somewhere around 250, resonated their sound throughout the entire auditorium, singing "I Dream A World," based on Langston Hughes' poem, and closing the performance with "America the Beautiful." Bradley Bunn, Molly Kressler and Aanchal Sahay were featured in their own descant part for the closing song.
This choral concert, consisting of 24 musical selections, was the longest MMS choral concert in years. Some students sang up to eleven songs. The concert was also notable in that the auditorium was noticeably hot and humid.
Throughout the concert, various students were featured as instrumentalists. Jeremy Au played piano; Ethan Hu, Sarah Park and Alexander Ren played violin; Julia Clipper and Amanda Kam played flute; Jacob Choi played clarinet; Matt Jacobs played tuba; Jordan Young played guitar; Ara Kim played cello; Keegan Caulfield played bass; and Josh Kaufman was the percussionist. Additionally, middle school accompanist John Conte accompanied the choirs on piano. Michael Bialer, Andrew Kiselik, and teacher Robert Manley served as the sound and lighting crew. Eighth grader Aanchal Sahay also served as the student stage manager.
Additionally, a handful of middle school singers were selected into the prestigious New Jersey NJSMA Region I Honors Chorus. These students included seventh graders Olivia Estes, Mary Hetherington, Ian Jaffe, Miranda Kasher, Carly Maitlin, Leonard Santos,and Chelsea Schwartz; and eighth graders Gauri Chopra, Charlie Ehrenfried, Sam Gersho, Chase Harrison, Matthew Jentis and Aparna Raghu.
